Section 8
“By the most infallible of proofs, inward feeling, I am convinced—
“1. Of unbelief; having no such faith in Christ as will prevent my heart being troubled.
“2. Of pride, throughout my life past; inasmuch as I thought I had what I find I have not.
“3. Of gross irrecollection; inasmuch as in a storm I cry to God every moment, in a calm not.
“4. Of levity and luxuriancy of spirit; appearing by my speaking words not tending to edify, but most by my manner of speaking of my enemies.”
He adds:—
“I went to America to convert the Indians; but oh, who shall convert me? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. I think, verily, if the gospel be true, I am safe: for I not only have given, and do give, all my goods to feed the poor; and not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever God shall appoint for me; but I follow after charity, if haply I may attain it. I now believe the gospel is true. I show my faith by my works,—by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again, a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me sees I would be a Christian. But in a storm, I think, ‘What if the gospel be not true? Then thou art of all men most foolish. For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life? For what art thou wandering over the face of the earth—a dream! a cunningly devised fable?’ Oh, who will deliver me from this fear of death? A wise man advised me some time since, ‘Be still and go on.’ Perhaps this is best, to look upon it as my cross.”
After landing in England, he penned another remarkable paper, which has often been cited without a quotation of the notes he appended in after years. He asserts that when he went to America, to convert the Indians, he was not himself converted; but in the appended note he adds, “I am not sure of this.” Neither are we. By his conscientious severity in comparing himself with the standard of a perfect Christian, as contained in the New Testament, and by his imperfect and mystified views of the scriptural plan of salvation, he might deprive himself of the filial confidence and joy belonging to a child of God; but we dare not affirm that he was a child of wrath because he was without the joy. On the same principle, thousands of us would be children one day, but not the next. Wesley’s assertion was too strong; in after life he felt it so; and those who quote it ought, in all fairness, to add what he himself appended.
In another part of the same document he says of himself: “Alienated as I am from the life of God, I am a child of wrath, an heir of hell.” But the note he attached to this, in subsequent years, is, “I believe not”; and if not a child of wrath, then in his opinion, and after mature reflection, he had a right to think himself a child of grace and an heir of heaven.
Another of his notes is: “I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son;” and that the reader may know what interpretation to put upon such words, we give the following extract from one of Wesley’s own sermons:—
“But what is the faith which is properly saving? It is such a Divine conviction of God, and the things of God, as, even in its infant state, enables every one that possesses it to fear God and work righteousness. And whosoever, in every nation, believes thus far, is accepted of Him. He actually is, at that very moment, in a state of acceptance. But he is at present only a servant of God, not properly a son. Meanwhile let it be well observed that the wrath of God no longer abideth on him. Nearly fifty years ago, when the preachers, commonly called Methodists, began to preach that grand scriptural doctrine, salvation by faith, they were not sufficiently apprised of the difference between a servant and a child of God. In consequence of this, they were apt to make sad the hearts of those whom God had not made sad. For they frequently asked those who feared God, ‘Do you know that your sins are forgiven?’ And upon their answering ‘No,’ immediately replied, ‘Then you are a child of the devil.’ No; that does not follow. It might have been said (and it is all that can be said with propriety), ‘Hitherto you are only a servant, you are not a child of God. You have already great reason to praise God that He has called you to His honourable service. Fear not, continue crying unto Him, and you shall see greater things than these!’ And, indeed, unless the servants of God halt by the way, they will receive the adoption of sons. They will receive the faith of the children of God, by His revealing His only begotten Son in their hearts. Thus, the faith of a child is, properly and directly, a Divine conviction, whereby every child of God is enabled to testify, ‘The life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ And whosoever hath this, the Spirit of God witnesseth with his spirit, that he is a child of God. This then it is, that properly constitutes the difference between a servant of God and a child of God.”
Let those who have been accustomed to cite Wesley’s hasty and incautious condemnation of himself, on his return from Georgia, read it again in the light of his own appended notes, and in the light of this extract from a sermon written by himself nearly fifty years afterwards; and they will then have a more correct idea of Wesley’s religious state at Oxford and in America, and will also be better fitted to understand what is meant by what is called his conversion on the 24th of May, 1738. This matter, however, must be resumed in its proper place.
Wesley, in Georgia, was accepted of God through Christ; but, to cite his own words at the conclusion of his own condemnatory document, he wanted “a sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, his sins were forgiven.” “I want,” says he, “that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it.”
Wesley, according to his own explanation, had long been in a saved state (though he knew it not); but he was far from being perfect, either in spirit or behaviour. No man could be more sincere or earnest; but it is hoped that few ministers of equal learning, wisdom, and sanctity make greater blunders than were made by him at Savannah. There can be little doubt that he had ecclesiastical authority for most, if not all, his priestly practices; and so have the half papistical priests and ritualists of the present day. But as England now is right in resisting the introduction of rites and ceremonies, fasts and feasts, confessions and penances, absolutions and interdicts, savouring more of the man of sin than of the word of God,—so Savannah then was right in resisting similar innovations attempted to be introduced by the extremely high church priest, fresh from the society of the Oxford Methodists. If we are right in denouncing ritualism now, Savannah was right in denouncing ritualism then. If the thing is offensive and obnoxious here, it was equally offensive and obnoxious there; and if no other end had been answered by Wesley’s mission to America than knocking out of him his high church nonsense, the good effected would have been an ample compensation for two dangerous voyages of six thousand miles, and for all the discomforts of living two-and-twenty months, in a log-built hut, among almost homeless emigrants, who had taken with them to the swamps and woods of Georgia more covetousness than courtesy, more rudeness than rank, more quarrelsomeness than quietude, and more conceit than common sense.
Wesley has been blamed for repelling Mrs. Williamson from the communion; and if he had nothing more to allege against her than the offence that, since her marriage, she had come to sacrament once a month only, instead of once a week, he deserves to be blamed. It was a rash proceeding, utterly unwarranted; and both she and her husband did right in resisting it. So far we agree with Wesley’s censors; but we cannot agree with them in saying that the great, if not only, reason of his repelling her was revenge arising out of her refusal to marry him. There is not a particle of evidence in proof of that. Five months had elapsed since her marriage; and, again and again, during that interval, he had administered to her the holy communion. The repulse was, on his part, a strictly conscientious, not a revengeful act; but though conscientious, it was, to say the least, mistaken, and deserves censure instead of praise. Mr. Moore says that, about three months after Mrs. Williamson’s marriage, Wesley saw things in her conduct which induced him to bless God for his deliverance in not marrying her, and that these things were noted in his private journal never printed. We have not the slightest wish to defend the lady where she deserves censure: but fairness compels us to say that we have seen the private journal; but neither in it, nor elsewhere, have we met with anything charged against her more serious than what has been already mentioned in the present far too lengthy chapter. Dissimulation is the strongest word Wesley has used concerning her; and this is used in reference to something which happened three months after she was married, and of which no explanation is given. Miss Hopkey, like Wesley himself, was not so good as she might have been; but that is not a sufficient reason why Wesley’s biographers should insinuate, if not assert, that she was worse than she really was.
Wesley’s mission to America seemed a failure! But was it so? When Whitefield arrived, he wrote: “The good Mr. John Wesley has done in America is inexpressible. His name is very precious among the people; and he has laid a foundation that I hope neither men nor devils will ever be able to shake. Oh that I may follow him as he has followed Christ.”
Wesley himself observes:—
“Many reasons I have to bless God for my having been carried to America, contrary to all my preceding resolutions. Hereby, I trust, He hath in some measure ‘humbled me and proved me, and shown me what was in my heart.’ Hereby, I have been taught to ‘beware of men.’ Hereby, God has given me to know many of His servants, particularly those of the church of Herrnhuth. Hereby, my passage is open to the writings of holy men, in the German, Spanish, and Italian tongues. All in Georgia have heard the word of God, and some have believed and begun to run well. A few steps have been taken towards publishing the glad tidings both to the African and American heathens. Many children have learned how they ought to serve God, and to be useful to their neighbour. And those whom it most concerns have an opportunity of knowing the state of their infant colony, and laying a firmer foundation of peace and happiness to many generations.”
These are no mean results to be realised in about two years,—self-knowledge, caution, acquaintance with the church that was to help him to clearer views of the plan of salvation, the acquisition of three European languages, the unprecedented fact of preaching Christ to all the widely scattered inhabitants of an English colony, steps taken to evangelise negroes and Indians, many children religiously educated, and the way prepared for promoting the prosperity of Georgia to the end of time!